ESSAY II. On the arts, commonly called imitative. T is the fate of thofe maxims, which have been thrown out by very eminent writers, to be received implicitly by most of their followers, and to be repeated a thousand times, for no other reason, than because they once dropped from the pen of a fuperiour genius: one of these is the affertion of Ariftotle, that all poetry confifts in imitation, which has been fo frequently echoed from author to author, that it would feem a kind of arrogance to controvert it; for almost all the philosophers and criticks, who have written upon the subject of poetry, mufick, and painting, how little foever they may agree in fome points, feem of one mind in confidering them as arts merely imitative: yet it must be clear to any one, who examines what paffes in his own mind, that he is affected Сс affected by the finest poems, pieces of musick, and pictures,upon a principle, which, whatever it be, is entirely diftinct from imitation. M. le Batteux has attempted to prove that all the fine arts have a relation to this common principle of imitating: but, whatever be said of painting, it is probable, that poetry and musick had a nobler origin; and, if the first language of man was not both poetical, and musical, it is certain, at leaft, that in countries, where no kind of imitation feems to be much admired, there are poets and musicians both by nature and by art: as in fome Mahometan nations; where fculpture and painting are forbidden by the laws, where dramatick poetry of every fort is wholly unknown, yet, where the pleafing arts, of expressing the paffions in verfe, and of enforcing that expreffion by melody, are cultivated to a degree of enthusiasm. It fhall be my endeavour in this paper to prove, that, though poetry and mufick have, certainly, a power of imitating the manners of men, and feveral objects in nature, yet, that their greateft effect is not produced by imitation, but by a very different principle; which must be fought for in the deepeft receffes of the human mind. To ftate the question properly, we must have a clear notion of what we mean by poetry and mufick; but we cannot give a precife definition of them, till we have made a few previous remarks on their origin, their relation to each other, and their difference. It seems probable then that poetry was originally no more than a strong, and animated expreffion of the human paffions, of joy and grief, love and hate, admira tion ration and anger, fometimes pure and unmixed, fometimes variously modified and combined: for, if we obferve the voice and accents of a perfon affected by any of the violent paffions, we fhall perceive fomething in them very nearly approaching to cadence and measure; which is remarkably the cafe in the language of a vehement Orator, whose talent is chiefly converfant about praife or cenfure, and we may collect from feveral paffages in Tully, that the fine fpeakers of old Greece and Rome had a fort of rhythm in their fentences, lefs regular, but not lefs melodious, than that of the poets. If this idea be juft, one would fuppofe that the most ancient fort of poetry consisted in praising the deity; for if we conceive a being, created with all his faculties and fenfes, endued with fpeech and reafon, to open his eyes in a most delightful plain, to view for the first time the ferenity of the sky, the splendour of the fun, the verdure of the fields and woods, the glowing colours of the flowers, we can hardly believe it poffible, that he should refrain from bursting into an extafy of joy, and pouring his praises to the creatour of those wonders, and the authour of his happiness. This kind of poetry is used in all nations, but as it is the fublimest of all, when it is ap-. plied to its true object, fo it has often been perverted to impious purposes by pagans and idolaters: every one knows that the dramatick poetry of the Europeans took its rise from the same spring, and was no more at first than a fong in praise of Bacchus; fo that the only fpecies of poetical compofition, (if we except the Epick) which can in any fenfe be called imitative, was deduced from a natural emotion of the mind, in which imitation could not be at all concerned. The next fource of poetry was, probably, love, or the mutual inclination, which naturally fubfifts between the fexes, and is founded upon personal beauty: hence arofe the most agreeable odes, and love-fongs, which we admire in the works of the ancient lyrick poets, not filled, like our fonnets and madrigals, with the infipid babble of darts, and Cupids, but fimple, tender, natural; and confifting of fuch unaffected endearments, and mild complaints, *Teneri fdegni, e placide e tranquille Repulse, e cari vezzi, e liete paci, as we may fuppofe to have paffed between the first lovers in a state of innocence, before the refinements of fociety, and the restraints, which they introduced, had made the paffion of love so fierce, and impetuous, as it is faid to have been in Dido, and certainly was in Sappho, if we may take her own word for it. I The grief, which the first inhabitants of the earth muft have felt at the death of their dearest friends, and relations, gave rife to another species of poetry, which originally, perhaps, confifted of fhort dirges, and was afterwards lengthened into elegies. *Two lines of Tasse. See the ode of Sappho quoted by Longinus, and translated by Boileau. As |